Mane co Mercenaries: The Battles
by Paintpaws
Summary: Before the return of Princess Luna and the reawakening of the Elements of Harmony, Changelings attack Equestria for the first time in over hundred years, but the Royal Guard aren't trained to fight off changeling so Princess Celestia calls in her secret weapon, her hired mercenaries from across the land of Equestria and beyond.
1. Preparation

Celestia's sun had just risen over the magical land of Equestria, the land was quite and still, nopony had yet disturbed the fresh new day. In a town, far south from both Canterlot and Ponyville, things were different. Ponies were already awake, some had been for hours, others were still drowsy and needed tea or coffee to keep themselves alert. The reason for them being awake at such ungodly hours, they were preparing. For a fight.

Nine creatures stood, sat or floated around a square table in the middle of a large room, the table held a map of all of Equestria and beyond into the known realms, the creatures looking at and discussing the map and some instructions that had been hastily written on parchment. Around the room were more maps, plans, posters and photos depicting various things ranging from heroic poses to group pictures of the nine creatures.

Among the creatures, three of them were arguing. One stocky, grey pegasus with a dark blue helmet covering his eyes was barking orders to a changeling wearing a dark red ski mask and a paler red suit, the changeling took a long drag from a cigarette being held in his green magic, glaring angrily at the pegasus while a short, tan coloured unicorn desperately tried to keep the peace between them.

The other creatures didn't seem too bothered by the trio, either they were used to the bickering or just didn't care, or maybe both. The only ones who showed any interest was a dragon and a second unicorn. The reptile was relatively small for a dragon, only just being taller than a pony, she itched absent mindedly at the mask she wore over her face while watching the three fight, staring at the short unicorn, her emotions unknown due to the mask. The unicorn was a dark red with a black mane and tail and a patch over one eye, he took a swig from a bottle of scrumpy as he warily kept an eye on the pegasus, ready to stop him if he attacked.

At the opposite end of the table sat a giant earth pony, he towered above the the white unicorn he was calmly chatting to in a foreign language. They too were discussing plans, the white unicorn occasionally adjusting his round glasses or flicking his dark curled mane as he spoke, the pale greyish blue earth pony squinting down at the map or some notes every so often.

Next to the pair was a griffon, adorned in a brown hat and sun tinted glasses, he sat there, quietly sharpening arrow heads as an energetic young pegasus in a baseball cap told him about a match that had happened the day before, the griffon wasn't really listening to the pegasus rant about unfair scoring and the other team cheating, but nodded his head every now and then as if to show intrest.

"Listen to me you love eatting MAGGOT!" The helmeted pegasus roared, breaking the somewhat calm atmosphere and sending the other creatures into silence, "I don't like you, I don't TRUST you! So when you tell me that we SHOULDN'T attack the hive head on, what in Celestia's mane do you think I will say to that!"

"Solly, please!" The tan unicorn pleaded, "Spy has a point, it could be a trap."

"It _is_ a trap." The changeling hissed, rubbing his temples, "But if you want to go charging in without a plan, no less, I'm not going to stop you."

"We _do_ have a plan!" Solly snapped angrily, "We storm their base, Medic deploys the ubercharge, we drop the bomb, Engie teleports us out and we watch the explosion over pints of beer! It's faultless!" The pegasus insisted, seeming quite proud of his plan.

The white unicorn tutted, "Herr Soldier you know I can only uber one pony at a time.", he said with a German ring to his voice.

"And laddie, I don't think wiping out an entire species is really what the princess wants us to do." The red, Scottish unicorn added.

The dark blue pegasus blinked, as if considering this for the first time, before he could speak however he was interrupted by the door to the room swinging open. A purple unicorn mare stood in the doorway, she wore cateye glasses and had her black mane tied up in a bun.

"Sorry I'm late guys." She said briskly as she trotted into the room and set her saddle bag down on the table, "Anything new Spy?" She asked the changeling.

Spy shook his head, "Either they know I'm working for you or they are sending instructions differently, I haven't been getting any for a while now."

The purple unicorn nodded, "So the attack is still coming as far as we know, alright... we can work with that."

"Hey Miss Pauling," The light blue pegasus spoke up, "Doing anything after tonight?"

"Not now Scout," Miss Pauling said, "If we don't take care of this first then we won't be able to do anything after tonight."

Scout frowned and lent close to the griffin beside him, "Is that a yes?" He whispered, the griffin chuckled but shook his head, the pegasus grumbled.

"The hive is here." Spy said, pointing at a black and green area on the main map on the table, "Chrysalis cannot teleport all of her drones and soldiers to Canterlot, from what I heard they will be passing through smaller towns like Ponyville in order to get there."

"Because they all so spread out we don't know which way the Queen will go," The tan unicorn chimed in, "Hell, for all we know she could already be in Canterlot."

Miss Pauling sighed, "If Engineer is right then this could already be over, changelings have never made contact like this to Equestria in a long time, nopony will know how to react."

"Probably why they want to attack now then, if your family member or lover starts acting differently, regular folks aren't gonna think it's a changeling, right?" The griffin said.

"Ohh tell her my plan." Soldier loudly whispered to Spy.

"I am not telling her your plan Soldier."

"Wait." The large stallion suddenly spoke, everybody turning to look at him, "All changelings are coming to Canterlot, they surround it, yes?" He said, drawing a circle around Canterlot with his hoof.

Spy nodded, "They plan to close in on the capital city, yes."

"You onto something, Heavy?" Scout asked.

"If you told hive that they were discovered, that tiny sun princess was setting trap and only way past is through Teufort, would they come?" Heavy asked

"...Tell them that Teufort was a blind spot to Canterlot" The griffin muttered, "That it's unguarded."

"Da, they come here, see no guards think it's safe."

Spy thought for a while, "It could work..." Miss Pauling said quietly.

"If I tell them what Sniper said, that we are the blind spot, she would likely send her more powerful soldiers through here, their disguises aren't as perfect as the drones or spys but they are more powerful fighters."

"Aye, we can take 'em" The Scottish unicorn said.

"And those pansy guards can deal with the drones," Soldier added, "and the spys will run away because they are cowards." He said glaring pointedly at Spy, who simply rolled his eyes.

"Okay, Spy send that message, I'll update the princess." Miss Pauling said picking up her things and beginning to leave, "And try to come up with a plan that doesn't endanger the town."

There were mummers of disappointed agreement in the room as Miss Pauling left, Sniper set out a map of Teufort on the table. "Trukie, if you set me up a teleporter about here," he pointed a claw in the forest surrounding oneside of Teufort, "Then I can tell you if I see them."

Engineer nodded, "Alright, but don't shoot, we need to get them into town before attacking them, then it's harder to retreat."

"Can't they just send a message saying that it ain't safe and that it's a trap." Scout piped up.

Spy waved him off, "These soldiers are like our Soldier, just dive right in without thinking."

"It's the only way to do it." Soldier beamed proudly, Spy facehoofed.

"Demo, set up some stickies in the centre of town, I'll hide some turrets there too." Engineer continued, Demo nodding, "Pyro and Solly attack from the air, Heavy and Medic from the ground doc, try to build an uber before they get here."

"Already on it." Medic said, a trail of blue magic swirling around his horn and attaching itself to Heavy, the magic having small blue crosses bubbling in it.

"Spy, you gotta get them here, me, Demo and Scout will stop them leaving. Sniper, get any that get too close or run too far away. Everyone clear?"

The creatures agreed and left the meeting room to begin setting up for the impending attack, Spy, Sniper and Engineer leaving the town and heading into the forest, not before Engineer set up a teleporter. Scout, Soldier and Pyro took to the air, Soldier and Pyro hiding behind the thatch roofs of houses, Scout lent on the wall of one of the houses, twirling his baseball bat in his hoof. Demo began enchanting small, spiky orbs, making them sparkle with the same red magic as his horn, after strategically placing the orbs in different places he tossed a saddle bag up to Soldier.

"It's fireworks and bombs laddie," The unicorn said in responce to the pegasus' confused expression, "Throw em down if they get too clumped up."

"Right." Soldier said, attaching the bag to his back and fumbling with some matches, the dragon made a low mumbling sound. "No I do not need your help Pyro."

"Well she could light them on the way down laddie."

Soldier grumbled and Pyro made a muffled sound as though she was laughing.

On the other side of town Medic and Heavy stood together and watched everyone set up, Engineer had just teleported back and had begun setting up sentry guns in hidden places, turning off their sound so their positions wouldn't be given away. Medic tittered to himself.

"Oh this is exciting." He muttered.

"What, because this is our is our first fight altogether?" Heavy asked, speaking better in Russian then he did in English.

"That and these creatures, oh how I would love to get a hold of one just to see what makes it tick." Medic responded in German. Heavy laughed, happy to have found someone who could adleast understand his mother tongue and didn't mock him for his poor Equestrian.

Engineer finished setting up a third sentry and then folded them all up into red tool boxes, ready to deploy them at a push of a button. He trotted over to Demo and joined him in pretending to window shop.

"I told the shop keepers not to panic if they hear explosions, didn't tell them about the changelings though." Demo said to Engineer in a hush tone.

"The Princess will probably want to do that herself," Engineer muttered, "Right now all we need to do is wait."

"I always hate this part." Scout said, overhearing the conversation.

"Me too boyo," Demo sighed and looked down the path Sniper and Spy had left down, "Me too."


	2. First Fight

The townsfolk went about their day as normal, they were still very wary of the eight new guests that had moved in a year or so ago, especially now that they had some sort of bug-like equine among them. But they decided to leave them be as they set up in the town centre but greeted them politely when they saw them later in town, they seemed nice enough to talk to, even if some were a little scary.

It had been just about a year ago when they all arrived, and that building appeared with 'Mane co Mercenaries' written on the grey building in white. An enthusiastic minotaur called Saxton Hale and a young purple unicorn called Miss Pauling had arrived with them insisting to the townsfolk that the new arrives meant no harm to the citizens of Teufort, and were "Just like trainee royal guards". They didn't tell the townsfolk about the dangerous outlaws part of the mercenary's story , so they were accepted.. reluctantly.

And now here they were, a year later and fitting in rather well. Engineer and Demo browsing one of the local hat shops, they were even trying some on and buying a few, Heavy and Medic chatted by a café, as though deciding whether or not to get lunch or not and Scout stood near to a radio, likely listening to a live baseball game as his face changed from nervousness to panic to a shout of "OH COME ON!" and back again.

That's when the griffin Sniper stumbled out of an ally, looking slightly dazed and sick. He looked around before wandering over to to Engineer and Demo.

"They're coming, gonna be looking like tourists, Spy's gonna be a green pegasus." He hissed to the two unicorns, Engineer nodded and pulled a calculator type device out of one of his bags of hats and pushed a red button, there was a flash of light down the ally Sniper had just came from and the clatter of metal.

Demo nodded, "Everything's ready to go lad, go find a perch, quick." Sniper nodded, holding on to his hat as he took to the air, gliding over to Scout to remind him of the impending battle before flapping up to a broken, abandoned buildings and hiding within.

Heavy watched him fly up and draw his bow, putting the arrow in place and waiting patiently. He turned back to Medic whose horn was now giving off blue sparks.

"Charged." Medic muttered, Heavy nodded, the two then returning to their previous conversation. They didn't have to keep their act up for much longer as a large group of around twenty ponies happily trotted into view.

The group looked off, the ponies were all oddly shaped, either they were too thin had oddly shaped body parts. Few ponies looked normal, one of them was the one in front, who stopped all of a sudden and looked around, causing the group behind him to stop in the town centre and stare at him, not loosing their cheerful demeanour.

"Hey pass me the map Crackers, I think we're lost." The pony said, he was a green pegasus with a yellow mane, he looked over to bulkiest pony in the group, an orange unicorn, he was big, but didn't surpass Heavy in size.

The unicorn tutted and shoved a map in the green pony's face, the pegasus spat it out and scanned it over with his green eyes, "Yep, definitely lost." He sighed and tossed the map back at Crackers

"I thought you said you knew where you were going.." Crackers growled, the pegasus raising his hooves defencelessly.

"Alright alright, I'll go and ask for directions." The green pegasus said, ignoring the glare he got from Crackers and flying over to Engineer and Demo.

Before Crackers or any of the other ponies in the group could protest to the green pegasus, Demo's horn flared a bright red as explosions went off around the group of tourists, throwing them off their feet, maiming a few and killing two. The group's wounds bled turquoise.

As the group recovered there were three separate beeps and chrrrs that came from different directions, the source of the noise were three sentry guns, red with laser guns and firework launchers. "It's a trap!" 'Cracker' yelled to his group as they tried to flee, some of the maimed creatures got pelted with rapid magical blasts before getting finished off with a bright firework, black and turquoise gibs sent into the air.

Out of the group of twenty, six had been killed already, the rest had ran out of the sentry's range. The green pegasus took to the air and hovered above them, smirking. 'Crackers' growled and dropped his disguise, the others following suit.

"You... traitor!" 'Crackers' roared, the yellow unicorn had become a brutish changeling adorned in dark blue armour, carried by powerful legs, "You dare disrespect the Queen."

Spy dropped his disguise too and glared down at the changelings, "She is not worthy of my respect." He hissed before vanishing.

The large changeling laughed mockingly, "And you've taught yourself pretty pony magic, how cute." He looked around for Spy when he was tapped on the shoulder, he whirled and glared at the drone that had distracted him, who pointed ahead of them.

When the brute changeling followed his gaze he paled, towering above the group was Heavy, Medic stood close behind with an amused expression on his face. The changelings all lit up their horns and fired magical green blasts at the pair, before they could hit Heavy's body turned blue and metallic, the blasts bouncing off harmlessly.

Heavy snorted before charging at group with a roar, Medic chased after him. Most scattered, only the largest changeling attempted to counter Heavy's attack only to be knocked aside and thrown into a nearby wall. The small changeling drone was stomped under Heavy's hoof just as the metallic armour flickered out.

Two other changelings, upon realising Medic had caused the armour, chose to attack the smaller stallion. One dove at the oblivious Medic only to receive a baseball to the skull, knocking the dazed changeling to the ground.

"Coming through knuckleheads!" Scout called as he swung his baseball bat at the second attacking changeling sending it flailing. The pegasus turned to the first changeling and brought his bat down on it's head while shouting, "BONK!"

Eleven changelings remained, two drones and nine soldiers, they all grouped together watching to see if any more ponies would start attacking. The townsfolk of Teufort had already fled into shops and buildings at the first explosion. That's when they heard a whistling sound came from above them.

"Scatter!" One of the soldiers yelled as a firework shot towards them, exploding in a red and yellow flash and sending them flying in different directions.

One of the two drones recovered quicker then the rest, he lifted his head and charged green magic in his horn before releasing it into the air where it exploded in a green flash with a loud 'bomb'. Soldier narrowly avoided the blast and glared down at the drone.

"You missed, MAGGOT!" He shouted, diving down and throwing a firework directly in the changeling's face, destroying it.

"That light could've been seen for miles." Demo mused as he darted around, placing more bombs towards the entrance to Teufort to prevent the changelings from retreating, "This has been too easy..." Demo watched as Pyro swooped down and incinerated eight of the ten changelings remaining, the insect like creatures apparently being highly flammable.

There were only three changelings left, the brute facing off Heavy and Medic and the two survivors of the firework attack, they both survivors making a charge for Scout, who was mocking of the changeling corpses. As one reared up to bite Scout with his sharp fangs an arrow buried itself into it's skull, killing the changeling instantly. At the same time the other was killed with a bite to the neck from Spy, who appeared behind it.

Spy groaned at the blood splattered onto his suit from both Sniper's arrow and his own bite, "Ruined." He muttered.

"Why the suit, traitor?" The changeling drone spat, he was being pinned to the ground by Heavy, any small cuts or bruises on the stallion's body were being rapidly healed by Medic's magic.

Spy casually pulled a cigarette case out of the inside pocket of his suit, removed a cigarette and lit it, "So my colleagues know who to aim for." He said just before an arrow impaled the brute's eye.

Heavy snorted and stood up straight, "That was too easy." He rumbled, the other nearby mercenaries agreeing.

"I understand that changelings are better stealth fighters, but that was pathetic." Medic added.

"Maybe they are.." Spy began, but was cut off by a pair of shouts.

"INCOMING!" Demo and Engineer chorused, the two unicorns quickly retreating from the entrance of Teufort, followed by an even larger group of changelings, possibly three times the size of the first batch.

Demo flared his horn again, an explosion going off amongst the changelings, but many were flying and were unharmed.

"There's more coming the other way too!" Scout shouted, backing away from an equally large group of changelings, "Really starting to hope we didn't get trapped in our trap you know." He said, laughing nervously.

"Bring it on you love eating MAGGOTS!" Soldier bellowed as he dove down into the small army with magical grenades in his hooves, he threw them down only for one to be shot back up and explode close enough to Soldier to send him off balance and crashing into the ground, his saddlebag of explosives breaking and falling away. Medic quickly ran over to heal the pegasus.

Pyro then dipped down and washed the changelings with her fiery breath, as she came low enough to them, the changelings began firing magical blasts at her, forcing her to fly higher.

The changelings came to a stop, surrounding the grounded mercenaries, who had retreated into the centre of town. They all were seemingly keeping their distance between themselves and the mercs.

"Oi Medic," Demo hissed while searching his saddle bag for more grenades, "You got a charge yet."

Medic shook his head as he helped Soldier to his hooves.

"A plan like, right now, would be nice." Scout said, hovering nervously over Heavy.

"They get too close and they'll get blasted." Engineer whispered, "But I think they already know that."

Back in the abandoned building Sniper swore quietly, there were too many to shoot effectively and so much as one arrow could give away his position. He was forced to just sit and watch his team, but still prepared his bow, just in case he saw an opportunity.

The match on the ground was at a standstill, there were too many for the mercs to attack head on, but the sentries stopped the changelings from attack any further. The two groups were just glaring at each other in silence. Spy decided to make a move, he sneaked back into the centre of the group and turned invisible, his movement went unnoticed by the surrounding changelings.

Soldier pushed Medic away to glare at the changelings around him, "I'll tell you what we're going to do stallions," He snapped, "We are going to fight! We are going to tear every last one of these maggots limb from limb and crush their brains to make BEETLE JUICE!"

Almost instantly after Soldier spoke laughter broke out around the mercs, the older pegasus growling as the other mercs winced at the changeling's shrill laughter.

One of the changeling's managed to catch their breath, "There's only six of you idiot ponies," The changeling called out to the group, "Six ponies, one dragon and one traitor against over a hundred of us."

Engineer blinked and exchanged looks with the other mercenaries, all of them realising the same thing; the changelings didn't know about Sniper.

Soldier simply continued to growl, "Alright love bugs, you asked for it." He addressed the changeling army, the pegasus grabbed Medic with one forelimb, before the unicorn could protest Soldier screamed, "ATTACK!", and took off into the air, taking Medic with him.

The remaining mercenaries were in shock for a few seconds, as were most of the changelings, until a spitball of fire fell from the air, the distracted changelings not noticing quick enough to move out of the way got hit. As the fire spread from the panicking changelings, the other mercenaries choose this opportunity to attack.

Engineer used his magic to pack one of his sentries away and take it closer to the fight. Some of the uninjured changelings fired their magic at Engineer and his relocated sentry to force the unicorn from retreating to collect another, instead he stayed to repair and protect his first. The short unicorn hid behind his device as he made constant repairs with his wrench to stop the magical blasts from destroying it, the sentry firing magical blasts back at any changeling that got too close. Engineer looked helplessly back over towards his other two sentries, one was still out of range of the changelings, the other was firing every so often at the changelings that swooped too low to it. If the unicorn had had enough magic left over he could of teleported one of the sentries over, but inorder for his sentries to work he had to sacrifice a large portion of his magic to them, building one would have been fine but building three left him with only the strength to do basic levitation.

Elsewhere Demo had collected the broken saddlebag that had been dropped by Soldier, inside he found around half a dozen fireworks but no magical grenades. _It'll have to do_, he thought. He darted back to a safer position and levitated a match box out of the saddlebag, he wasn't surprised to find that not many were left, but he would have to make do. Demo took three of the fireworks in his magic and held them horizontally, using a spell to enchant them with more power, the enchantment making the explosives glitter with the same red magic that came from Demo's horn, he then lit a match and fired all three at once. The fireworks wizzed towards a group of changelings charging towards Engineer from behind the unicorn's back, one firework exploded in front of the group, blinding them, the two exploding in the middles of the group, scattering and maiming them.

Heavy however, wasn't finding it as easy to fight the horde of changelings, especially with Medic gone. If he charged in to them he would get swarmed and taken down, but he wasn't fast enough to dodge the changeling's magic. He found himself feeling quite useless in the middle of the town centre.

Scout seemed to sense this, he swooped down close to a small group of changelings, "Yo knuckleheads, over here." He taunted, hitting one over the head with his bat. The changelings hissed angrily and chased after him, Scout luring them straight to Heavy, flying over the giant stallion's head.

"All yours, big guy." He said as he flew away to find some more changelings to fight/lure. Heavy grinned and turned back to the changelings, who had stopped chasing Scout and stared at Heavy before trying to scramble away. Despite his slowness, Heavy still caught up with the changelings with ease and stomped on them, Scout luring more changelings over to the giant.

Spy appeared and disappeared amongst the army, tearing out throats of lone changelings. He was unable to disguise as other changelings, changelings had the ability to know who other changelings were disguised as, so it would have been pointless to try. The amount of changeling blood in his teeth and mouth, a lot of it getting on his suit. If only he had something else to kill with. _Perhaps a knife or something_, the changeling thought to himself.

Meanwhile, up in the air, Soldier and Medic hovered high up in the sky. Medic making quiet nervous noises while he kicked his legs around as though treading water, Soldier glaring down at the fight, ignoring the sounds coming from the unicorn he was carrying. Pyro was gliding around the sky as well, she and Soldier were focused to stay up high, flying too low would result in being shot at by the changelings.

"You got that charge yet doc?" Soldier asked.

"N-nein." Medic answered, trying not to look down, "I don't know what you'd do with it anyway."

Soldier looked thoughtful for a moment, as if just realising that he didn't have a plan, Medic sighed shakily.

"Ghh hmm trr mmrr." Pyro mumbled, as she landed on a nearby cloud. The two stallions in the air exchanging confused looks.

"Speak up smokey joe, that's an order." Soldier snapped, Medic wincing from being so close to the pegasus' shout.

"GHH HMM TRR MMRR." Pyro said a little louder then before, Soldier and Medic still looking confused.

"We are going to have to teach you sign language fraulein." Medic muttered, mainly to himself.

Pyro made a sighing sound through her mask, "Ghh hmm," She pointed at Medic, "Trr mmrr." the dragon then pointed at herself.

"You should have said so then private." Soldier said, Medic yelped as Soldier threw him at Pyro, the dragon catching the distressed unicorn with both her arms.

"DON'T DO THAT!" Medic shouted at the pegasus after catching his breath from the mini-heart attack he had in the air, "Bitte."

"Not now oktoberfest, I've got a job to do." Soldier waved Medic away, the unicorn huffed in irritation. Soldier swooped down to a lower cloud, dragging it down closer to the ground to protect him from any magical blasts. "Charge!" He cried as he suddenly swooped down to a clear area by Demo, the unicorn having run out of explosives and was now attacking with a board with nails hammered into it.

Pyro and Medic remained in the air, the dragon looked down at the unicorn and asked, "Chrrr?", before Medic could question her the dragon pointed a claw at Medic's horn.

"Oh." Medic said, attaching his healing magic to the dragon, "Nearly, just a little longer." Pyro nodded and looked back down to the battle.

Sniper watched the fight take place from a safe distance, the griffin had a limited amount of arrows, so had to make them count. He picked off any changelings disguised as the mercenaries, like the changeling that crept up on Engineer disguised as Demo, or the Scout that was moving slower then the real one could, as he tried to get the best of Heavy while the giant was distracted. He also kept a weary eye on Spy whenever he saw him. The griffin didn't quite trust the changeling, not after the cut close to his eye when they first met, although Sniper had sliced Spy's ear in return. Sniper allowed a smirk as he remembered their first meeting before taking aim once more and firing.

The team of six mercenaries still fighting on the ground were doing surprisingly well against the army, Pyro's first fire spit having drastically eaten into their numbers, the mercs still chipped away at the remaining changelings. But the ones that remained seemed to be smarter and able to take more hits then the ones that had fallen, even with Soldiers added help there was still many changelings left. Heavy especially was getting swarmed by some of the stronger changelings. The majority of the insect like creatures had grouped together to defend from all sides.

Pyro waited patiently on the cloud, holding the 'apparently-afraid-of-heights' doctor in her arms. When Medic's horn began to sparkle he nodded, "I am charged." he said, "Do you have a plan?", Pyro nodded and put Medic on her back, the unicorn looked down, "I'll charge you when you get close to the ground." Pyro nodded again and flared her wings.

She swooped down low to the ground, the grouped changelings noticed and began to shoot upwards, before they hit Pyro's body became blue and sparkly, the magical blasts from the changelings doing nothing. She took in a breath then breathed a wash of fire over the changelings in the group, incinerating them with ease before the ubercharge flickered out.

"Alright Pyro!" Scout cheered as he darted away from the burning changelings, he and the other mercs looking around and seeing Heavy, still surrounded by changelings.

"Come on y'all!" Engineer called to the group, he carried one of his remaining sentries closer to the surviving changelings, leaving the other to defend the fire in case a changeling somehow survived. Pyro set Medic down and joined the fight, Medic healing Heavy once the changelings had been killed.

"Are you okay mein kamerad?" The doctor asked, he and Demo pulling the giant stallion to his hooves.

"Da, da, Heavy is fine doktor." Heavy replied as Sniper glided down towards the group.

"Sorry to break it to you mates," He said, landing beside Pyro, "But we missed about four of the pikers, ran out of arrows before losing sight of 'em." He looked around, "And where the bloody hell is Spy."

Heavy shook his head, "Cowards have run away, no point going after them." He said.

Engineer frowned, "You sure partner, they could be warning the Queen."

"Tiny Spy will take care of them, am sure." Heavy nodded, Engineer's frown lightened, but didn't leave his features.

Before the team could argue further they heard a shout, "Guys! Guys!" They turned to see Miss Pauling running towards them, she stopped next to Scout, "Did you get them all?"

Demo nodded, "Spy's after the ones that got away, did the princess get the news?"

Miss Pauling nodded, "She wants to thank you all in person," The mercenaries exchanging excited looks, "Once you've recovered that is.. and cleaned up." she added, gesturing to the state of Teufort, the amount of changeling bodies, burnt ground and small craters, not to mention the terrified citizens of Teufort.

"We better get to work then lads and lassies." Demo said, laughing weakly, "Hey, maybe e'll even get Spy to do some work when he gets back."

"_If_ he get's back," Sniper muttered coldly, "He's proberly gonna stab us in the back, you know that right."

"We'll see slim," Engineer said, "Can't be sure that all those things are bad right."

"But anyway," Miss Pauling continued, "You guys deserve a rest, Celestia has sent some guards to do clean up here, nobody knew how bad it would be, and you all survived, you should celebrate."

The surrounding mercenaries cheered to this and began to head back towards the Mane co base on the other side of town. Scout flew over to Miss Pauling, likely attempting to ask her to join in the celebration. Heavy stayed behind from the group, Medic looked at him worriedly.

"Are you okay my friend?" The doctor asked in German.

"Yes, I'm fine." Heavy replied in German.

Medic blinked in confusion and looked Heavy in the eye, "Since when can you speak Germane?" He asked.

Heavy hesitated for a moment before answering, "Er, have been learning it," He said in English.

Medic was about to question his friend further when the thought suddenly became unimportant to him, a sharp pain sprung up at his temples causing him to stagger backwards, almost tripping on his own backlegs.

"What's wrong doktor?" Heavy asked in English, catching Medic before he fell, the unicorn shook his head and brought a hoof up to his head.

"I'm.. I don't know." The unicorn shook himself again and tittered, "Probably just a rush from that battle, ja?"

Heavy smiled, "Will be okay for party though?"

"Of course!"

Demo called Medic over to discuss alcohol with him, thee two unicorns beginning to chatter about the different types and what would be suitable for the evening. Heavy hung back behind the group, the other mercenaries deciding that the giant stallion, who wasn't the fastest on his good days, was just tired, so they continued planning the night ahead.

They were too caught up with celebrating noticed that something was very wrong.


	3. Traitor

The evenings celebrations had been a success. It was beer and cider mixed with music and dancing, the mercenaries providing the music themselves, most of them being skilled with an instrument. Sniper played his saxophone while Engineer strummed his guitar, Demo played the piano that Mane co had been given by a local music shop as a welcoming gift. Even Medic drew beautiful sounds from his violin when he wasn't complaining of a headache.

Somehow, the beautiful, jazz like music the four of them made calmed the citizens of Teufort. Some of them even dancing in the streets before the braver ponies asked if the mercenaries would join in the town wide celebration of surviving the first changeling attack Equestria had seen in decades. The team happily agreed, so the small celebration between friends became a street party honouring new heroes.

Even after Celestia raised the Mare in her Moon into the sky the party was still in full swing, but as Miss Pauling reminded the mercs, they would be visited by the Princess of the Sun herself the next day. Reluctantly, the mercenaries decided to take it easy, letting the townsfolk get drunk and stay up late instead of themselves.

Miss Pauling woke early then most the next morning and had the same clean up team that had cleared the aftermath of the fight clear up the aftermath of the party. By then the mercenaries had also awoken and were having breakfast in Mane Co's mess hall. The ponies had food ranging from pancakes or waffles with apples sauce to cereal, toast or hay bacon, real bacon was on Sniper's plate and Pyro had a bowl of rubies that she was eating with a spoon, acting as though it was cereal.

Sniper left the kitchen with a plate of bacon in his claws. The mess hall had three tables, two of which had benches, one table seated Demo, Soldier, Scout and Pyro, the on other sat Engineer, Heavy and Medic. Sniper yawned and wandered to the third table, it bore cans of cold drinks, a coffee machine and a toaster. The griffin ruffled his feather in an attempt to wake himself up while waiting for his coffee and toast, he was still worried about Spy. He knew something was wrong, why would a changeling that hated Queen Chrysalis suddenly take off home, it just didn't make sense.

The griffin yelped when his toast popped out the toaster, the surprise dragging him out of his thoughts as he heard Scout laughing. He cast dark glare at the young pegasus before taking his breakfast to the other table. He took his seat opposite Medic, who was sitting next to Heavy, the unicorn had his head in his hooves.

Sniper frowned, "Hungover?" he asked, Medic groaned in response.

"Lightweight," Demo muttered from the other table as he took a swig of scrumpy with his breakfast.

Sniper chuckled and pushed his plate of bacon towards Medic, "You can have some if ya want, mate." The griffin shrugged at Medic's confused expression, "My dad always said the real stuff s'pose to cure hangovers, not like that hay bacon rubbish."

"He can't eat that!" Engineer said in alarm, his expression one of horror.

Medic sighed, "Ponies can eat meat just fine, Herr Engineer." He said rubbing his temples, Sniper nudged the plate again and the unicorn picked up a single strip in his magic, "Just as long as we don't eat too much."

"You Equestrians just think it's all unethical 'cos your meat talks." Sniper said, taking the rest of his bacon and putting it on his toast, "In the rest of the world, it don't." Medic nodded in confirmation.

"Ah see." Engineer said warily, watching Medic eat his bacon on his own, "So cows and folk don't talk in Germaney?"

The white unicorn nodded, "Something to do with the Hooviet Union I believe."

"They were experimenting on them!?" Engineer asked, his face holding the same horror as before, Medic shrugged and pointed at Heavy, Engineer looked up at the much larger stallion. "Were you with the Hooviets then?"

Heavy hesitated for a few moments before answering, "Yes, but.."

"No you weren't!" Medic snapped, causing the room to go silent. "...You escaped from Gulag with your sisters and mother I remember you telling me! I remember you saying how your father was killed because..." Medic grimaced as another bolt of pain went through his skull, he groaned and rested his head on the table, no longer having the energy to argue. The rest of the mercenaries, including Heavy, were stunned into silence.

"Trouble in paradise." Scout said quietly, trying to lighten the mood but only resulted in Demo slapping him lightly on the back of the head.

"..Doc maybe you should go take some medicine for that headache of yours, probably wouldn't look so good in front of the Princess." Engineer said after a while, Medic nodded slowly and rose from his seat. Engineer nodded to Sniper, who winked behind his aviators.

"I'll go with ya doc." The griffin said, picking up his and Medic's unfinished breakfast.

"You don't have to." Medic started.

"Nah, gotta go down to the support rooms anyway."

As the unicorn and griffin left for the support quarters elsewhere in the base, Demo, Soldier and Scout managed to get back into a conversation, where as Pyro continued to stare at Heavy, her emotions unreadable through her mask, yet she was fixated on Heavy for an unknown reason. Engineer glared up at the large blue stallion. He was about to question him on how it was possible to just forget about Gulag when the room was interrupted again.

"Good morning team." Miss Pauling said briskly, she did a quick head count, "Err.. where's the support team?"

"Medic was feeling a tad sick, Sniper's gone with him." Demo answered.

"..and Spy?"

"Still not back yet lass."

Miss Pauling frowned, "This is bad."

"So Swiss cheese didn't survive the night," Scout said, taking a bite out of a pancake, "So what."

"I'm pretty certain he survived, Scout." Miss Pauling insisted, "But if he's not here then... he must be at the hive."

"HE'S A TWO FACED BACK STABBING TRAITOR!" Soldier suddenly bellowed, jumping up onto the table "I KNEW IT ALL ALONG, WE SHOULD NEVER HAVE.." The pegasus was cut off by Demo using his magic to drag him back into his seat.

"Thank you Demo." Miss Pauling sighed, "He wouldn't go back to the changelings after fighting against them.. at least not willingly."

"You think he's been captured?" Engineer asked

"It's likely, who was the last one of us to see Spy in battle." Miss Pauling asked, the room went silent as the mercenaries thought.

"Probably Sniper, remember him saying about keeping an eye on him." Engineer answered.

Miss Pauling nodded, "He's in the support quarters right?" Engineer nodded, "Alright, I'll go and talk to him, the rest of you should go get washed up, the princesses will be here soon."

"Wait, hold it, _princesses_? As in, more than one?" Scout asked just as the purple unicorn was leaving.

Miss Pauling smiled, "Princess Celestia is bringing her niece, Princess Cadence." She said, "The Princess of love."

The Mane co building was seemingly bigger on the inside, even though it probably wasn't. In the building there was a large meeting hall, a small infirmary, a mess room equipped with a well stocked kitchen and three separate quarters that housed the mercs on the upper floor. Each of the quarters had three small bedrooms, one bathroom and one reasonably spacious living room complete with soft seats and a coffee table, one corner of the living space had been sacrificed for a few counters and a mini fridge to make a very small kitchen.

The support quarters was quite a mess when Miss Pauling arrived there, she realised that leaving a griffin who didn't care for being tidy about things that weren't to do with marksmanship and a unicorn who claimed that his messy work space was simply "organised chaos" in an apartment like space was not such a good idea.

_No wonder Spy complained about having to live with these two._ Miss Pauling thought to herself as she passed Sniper's room, the door was open, inside Miss Pauling could see an unmade bed, with a bow propped up against it, the bow's arrows where in their quiver and hanging off one of the bed posts, a fishing hat was atop of the bedpost it'self. His saxophone case was on the windowsill and open, showing that the brass instrument had been safely put away. On the desk in the room beside a set of draws was a collection of what Miss Pauling believed to be dragon teeth on a piece of string and jars of something yellow. Miss Pauling grimaced at the jars and carried on down the hall.

Medic's room was closed, a painting of his cutie mark was on the door along with his name, unlike Sniper's door, which just had his name due to his lack of a cutie mark, the same was with the room Spy had been using, expect this door didn't even have a name on it.

Hearing voices up ahead, Miss Pauling continued into the living room where she found Medic sprawled out on a sofa with his head buried in a pillow and Sniper leaning against a counter, calming drinking coffee out of a "#1 Sniper" mug. Miss Pauling cleared her throat, Sniper looked up and tipped his hat to her.

"Mornin' shelia." He greeted her politely.

"Good morning, Sniper." Miss Pauling replied, she circled around the sofa and looked down at Medic then back up at Sniper, who shrugged.

"You need something from him? 'Cos I don't think you'll get it very easily." Sniper said, going over to a chair and clearing it of a newspaper before offering it to Miss Pauling.

As she sat down Medic looked up to see who their guest was, Miss Pauling frowned, "I didn't see you drink that much last night, Medic," Medic groaned.

"I had a headache already, it started after that fight and now it won't leave." He grumbled

"Got really bad when he shouted at Heavy though." Sniper added, returning to the counter he was leaning on.

Miss Pauling frowned again, "Why did you shout at him, thought you two were friends."

Medic shook his head, "We are friends.. good friends," He winced in pain and laid his head back down again, "Ack, I don't know, it's not important." Miss Pauling sighed at this.

"That all you wanted shelia?" Sniper asked.

"Oh! No, I needed to ask you about Spy, Sniper." Miss Pauling said, remembering her task, Sniper nodded, "You need to tell me where you saw him last."

The griffin scratched his chin with a claw, "I think I saw him cloak when he attacked a bigger group of changelings, I saw him running off into town."

"Did anyone follow him?"

"Those changelings, bloody piker bit off more than he could chew."

"Oh no.." Miss Pauling said quietly, resting her head in her hooves, Medic looked up again.

"Was ist los?" He asked, his head hurting too much to try to speak Equestrian.

"We think that Spy has been captured by the hive." Miss Pauling stated, earning looks of surprise from both creatures.

"You mean he didn't run off?" Sniper asked.

"It's unlikely, I mean, where would he go?" She sighed, lifting her head from her hooves, "Being a traitor to the hive is effectively treason."

Medic and Sniper exchanged worried looks, "We gotta save him." The griffin said.

"We'll speak to the princess first, and Medic." She looked down at the unicorn, "Will you be okay to see the princesses, you don't exactly look..." She searched for a word, "Presentable."

Medic snorted, but silently agreed, "There are painkillers in my room." He said weakly.

Miss Pauling looked up at Sniper expectantly, the griffin recoiled back, "I'm not going in there." He said quickly.

"Why not?"

"Can't read the labels."

Sighing, Miss Pauling got to her hooves, "Where is it?" She asked, not quite sure why she was doing this.

"A bottle in a brown bag." Medic said.

Miss Pauling sighed again and trotted down the hall to Medic's room, she took the door handle in her magic and opened it. She yelped when a flock of snowy white doves greeted her excitedly, flapping around her and cooing then taking off down the hall and into living room. She heard Sniper swear loudly at the doves and as the sound of seven flying pairs of wings die down she heard Medic say, "Don't worry darlings, daddy's fine." In Germane.

The Purple unicorn blinked a few times and recomposed herself before walking into Medic's room only to fine it was no better than Sniper's. Papers were strewn around the room, many had been pinned down by various books on the desk but quite a few had caught the wind from the open window and were now on the floor. Also on the desk was a mask in the shape of a bird's face with a long beak, Miss Pauling guessed that it, along with most of the items in the room, was from Germaney. Tiny, fluffy feathers were on every surface but to the purple unicorn's surprise there were no dove droppings, in the corner stood a sheet music stand with a violin case propped up against it. She found the brown bag hanging off a bedpost with what appeared to be a gas mask and a pair of goggles.

Miss Pauling picked up the brown bag and almost dropped it when she realised it was made of leather, she sighed and used her magic to open the bag and pull out a bottle that read "Schmerzmittel", thankfully Miss Pauling could speak many languages, so took this bottle back to the living room. She found Medic still on the sofa and covered in doves, cooing over them and Sniper glaring at the birds, grumbling as he sipped his second cup of coffee.

"Here." Miss Pauling said putting the bottle in front of Medic's face.

"Danke." Medic replied, he took two pills from the bottle as Sniper handed him some tap water in a mug.

Miss Pauling looked up at the clock on the wall, "The princesses will be here soon, come on!"

Soldier had insisted that the eight mercenaries should line up in a straight line facing the princesses as they arrived, that they should all stand to attention and that he would tell them exactly what to do. To keep the pegasus happy the mercenaries compiled, getting into a row, separated into the same three groups that their quarters where organised into, the groups that Celestia had organised them into herself. Scout, Soldier and Pyro were at one end, Demo, Heavy and Engineer were in the middle and Medic and Sniper were on the end.

Not long after the mercenaries were organised a golden chariot pulled by four white furred pegasus guards swept gracefully down to the ground, the royal pegasus guards slowing to a trot and stopping in front of the eight mercs and Miss Pauling. The Princess of the Sun herself stepped off of the chariot, her soft blue, pink and green mane and tail flowing majestically behind her. Stepping off the chariot and hiding behind Princess Celestia's tail was a small, pale pink alicorn, with a pink, purple and yellow mane and tail, the white alicorn smiled kindly to her, the pink alicorn finding her courage and stepping out to stand beside the princess.

Princess Celestia turned and gave a gentle smile to the gathered mercenaries, only Soldier saluted, the rest bowed politely.

"Thank you my little mercenaries." Princess Celestia addressed the group with the voice of an angel, the mercenaries straightening up, "Thank you for saving Equestia from falling to the changelings, if it had not have been for all of you then we would not have known of the upcoming attack. That is why me and my niece Princess Mi Amore Cadenza have come to thank you in person."

Princess Cadence nodded slightly to the mercenaries,"Or Princess Cadence, if you will." she said, earning another smile from her aunt.

"We would like to especially thank you..." Princess Celestia stopped and blinked at the space beside Sniper, she frowned slightly and turned to Miss Pauling, "Where is the changeling, Spy?" She asked

"That's our problem Princess," Miss Pauling answered, "Spy went missing in the battle yesterday and we haven't seen him since."

The white alicorn gasped softly, her niece looked worried, "They haven't found him, have they?" The princess of love asked.

"..We don't know." Miss Pauling said after a moment.

Princess Celestia closed her eyes and sighed sadly, "I promised that I would protect him from harm." She said quietly.

Princess Cadence looked over to the mercenaries, "You have find him, please!" she pleaded.

"We would do your highness, but there's no way that we could get to the hive without being noticed." Engineer said, removing his helmet as he stepped forward.

"There is a way." Princess Celestia said firmly, opening her eyes, "It will be risky, but I have the power to teleport all of you closer to the hive, I can put a spell on you all so you can get in and out without being detected."

"So, no fighting?" Soldier clarified.

The Sun Princess chuckled, "No fighting, not if you can help it." Soldier somehow seemed satisfied with this answer.

"Alrighty then, when are we going?" Engineer asked.

"When ever you are ready." Princess Celestia said, she then stepped back so that her niece was in front of her, "And I'd like you to take Princess Cadence with you." the love princess's eyes widened in surprise and she spun around to face her aunt.

The mercenaries were shocked too, they all stared at the sun princess until Sniper spoke up, "With all due respect your highness, I think that the Princess would be in danger with us." Princess Cadence becoming even more concerned.

"May I remind you Sniper, that Princess Mi Amore Cadenza is an alicorn and is more then capable of looking after herself." Princess Celestia said, not losing her gentle and calm demeanour, "And I believe that she will be of great help to you in the hive." the mercenaries exchanged worried looks, Heavy looked more worried then the rest.

Hesitantly, the mercenaries agreed, they felt that it wasn't right to argue with someone so benevolent. Princess Celestia lent down to Princess Cadence and whispered something in her ear, the smaller alicorn blinked in shock but then smiled and nodded, the sun princess then turned to the mercenaries, "Gather your equipment and see me when you are ready."

"DISMISSED!" Soldier shouted as he and the other mercenaries cantered into the Mane co building, rushing off into their designated quarters.

As the mercenaries knew, if this plan went wrong they could end up in a very sticky situation, one that could result in being captured by the changelings and be forced to not even Celestia knows what. Because of this, the mercs decided to bring more equipment then they had in their first fight.

Scout found a backpack that he could fly with and put in cans of Bonk! energy drink and three baseballs, he rubbed his lucky dog with the back of his hoof and retied the bandages around his ankles before grabbing his baseball bat. Soldier took off down the hall to the defence quarters where Demo, Heavy and Engineer resided to collect more fireworks. Pyro ate more jewels to fuel her fire breath and sharpened her claws.

In the support quarters Sniper tried to fill as many arrows into his quiver as he could, he collected a few of the yellow jars he had and brought an empty one for good measure. Medic sorted through his leather bag, he quickly gave up and dumped it's contents on his bed, he took the painkillers and put them into the bag, filled a bottle with water and put a bonesaw and scalpel into the bag before ushering his doves into his bedroom and telling them to behave.

Meanwhile in the defence quarters Demo was sorting out grenades for himself and firework rockets for Soldier, who had just bust into the room. Engineer rolled up blueprints and carefully put them into a saddlebag before building a small sentry up and folding it away in a metal box, only making it a magic shooter instead of a magic and firework shooter so that it would weigh less. He filled up the rest of his saddlebag with metal to repair and protect his sentry with.

Heavy however, stood alone in his room. Thinking.

Once all of the mercenaries had prepared they grouped with Princess Celestia, Princess Cadence and Miss Pauling, the mercs reformed into their line.

Princess Celestia nodded to them, "I will take us mile away from the hive, you will have to walk from there as I cannot teleport us too close or we will be seen."

"What about you and Miss Pauling?" Scout asked.

"Oh, I'm staying here." Miss Pauling said, "In case the worst happens." she added weakly.

"If the worst does happen I will be with all of you." Princess Celestia said calmly, "I will be able to teleport in, stun the changelings for a short amount of time and teleport you all out so that no one gets hurt."

"How will you know that we're in danger?" Demo asked.

"I'll be able to send a distress signal powerful enough to reach Celestia." Princess Cadence said.

Princess Celestia nodded, "Are you all ready?", the gathered mercenaries nodding, "I will cast the cloaking spell on you now so that we don't waste time."

The sun princess's horn lit up with yellow magic, the same magic glowing around the mercenaries and Princess Cadence. They glowed for a few moments as a tingling sensation spread across their bodies and they were raised into the air slightly. After a few more moments they were set back down on the ground.

"I feel stealthier already." Soldier announced.

"Did it work?" Scout asked, "I can still see and hear these bozos."

"This spell allows you to still see each other, but yes, you are now invisible to both sight and magic." Princess Celestia.

"Wait, they're still here?" Miss Pauling asked, staring at the space were the mercenaries and princess of love had been, Princess Celestia chuckled.

"Hey Miss Pauling, stay silent if you'll go on a date with me." Scout said, mainly to himself but Pyro overheard, a puff of smoke came out of her mask and she shoved Scout roughly to the ground.

"I'll just stand still so I don't bump into any of them." Miss Pauling said, her eyes still searching for the missing mercenaries. Pyro let out a loud but muffled laugh.

"Miss Pauling, stand back, mercenaries, stand close. I will take us to the hive." Princess Celestia said, the mercs gathering closer together.

"Good luck guys." Miss Pauling called out into what she believed was empty space, "Bring Spy back safe."

"We're gonna need it." Sniper muttered, Medic cast a worried glance to him.

All of a sudden there was a bright flash and the Princess was gone, Miss Pauling was left on her own.

"Please stay safe." She whispered.


	4. The Hive - Part 1

A soft yet bright yellow light blinded the mercenaries vision momentary, once their senses had cleared and their eyes had readjusted to the dimmer light of the world around them they saw that they had been brought to a forest, the trees themselves seemed darker then normal trees, the bark was almost black and the leaves where leathery.

Princess Celestia raised her head and examined their surroundings, then nodded to the mercenaries, "Travel north, you cannot miss the hive." She flared her wings, "Remember that the easiest way of getting Spy out is getting in without being seen." The Princess of the Sun said before taking gracefully to the sky.

As soon as she was in the air the mercenaries began their short trek to the changeling hive, once Princess Celestia was out of sight Princess Cadence glared at the mercenaries.

"She told you no fighting." She hissed angrily, gesturing to the packs of weapons brought by the mercenaries.

"She said, no fighting if we could help it, your highness." Engineer said calmly, "And honestly, the're more to protect you, if we get in trouble. Which is likely to happen, considering our luck with changelings so far.."

Princess Cadence dropped her glare, feeling slightly guilty for the mercenaries, but then raised an eyebrow, "What about Spy? You'd consider that luck, right?"

Demo snorted, "More like one of them changelings have finally come to their senses and realised that their Queen's a bloodly power hungry psychopath, that's not luck lass, that's common sense."

Cadence was about to argue when Scout interrupted her, "Why are you and the Princess so obsessed with Swiss cheese legs anyway?" He asked hovering above the group. "There's hundreds of them just the same."

The Princess of Love sighed, "There isn't hundreds that would turn away from the hive like he did," She paused, "To turn away from their only home and their own kind... That's not something a lot of ponies could do."

"So he's a rarity?" Sniper asked, "Valuable?"

Princess Cadence nodded, "Aunty said that she tried to make with the Changelings a long time ago, but they refused for some reason. Every so often a changeling has come to Celestia because they had, like you said, _come to their senses_." She sighed again, "Aunty said that whenever this did happen, that changeling would be marked a traitor and be hunted down by the hive. She said that it happened every time no matter how well hidden or protected they were. Spy was the one she decided, that she would go all out on saving."

Engineer frowned, "She didn't really put much effort into it then... no offence."

"She thought that he would be safer with you, especially with a dragon." Cadence said, Pyro chirped happily overhead.

"Izzat why she'd risking you and her self for him?" Demo asked, turning to the Princess

Cadence didn't answer, she stared ahead with wide eyes. When Demo followed her gaze he saw it. The Changeling Hive.

The hive was a greenish black, matching the trees that grew around it and it had holes that matched the creatures that lived inside. Yet it was large but not very tall, the mercenaries guessed that the rest of the hive must be underground. Sticky green patches of something were around and hive, some spilling out of holes that might be windows, there were also cobweb like substances, similar to a changeling's mane and tail. that reached out from the hive and stuck to the ground.

Guarding what was supposedly the entrance stood a group of four large guards, they wore thick, dark blue armour, unlike the thin more metallic type that the attackers of Teufort had worn, their horn's stuck out of their helmets and were tall and jagged, clearly built to fight with. Their wings poked out too, seemingly larger and had less holes.

"How we gonna get past?" Scout asked.

"We're invisible, remember." Demo hissed, not quite sure if he had to keep his voice down or not.

Scout landed hesitantly and looked out at the guards, "Yeah but what if we're not."

"Are you saying that you don't trust Celestia?" Princess Cadence asked, looking pointedly at Scout.

Before Scout could answer back, Soldier grabbed him, "Only one way to find out!" He said, then launched Scout towards the changeling guards before any of the mercenaries could stop him.

Thankfully, Scout could recover quickly from falling. He spread his wings out, tensing them to slow himself before aiming himself skywards and beating his wings quickly so that he would be far enough away from the changeling guards to have an advantage on them if they did attack. Which they didn't.

Scout beamed and turned back to the group, who where hiding amongst the bushes, "It safe!" It called over to them while keeping a wary eye on the guards in case they reacted to his voice. Which they didn't.

The young pegasus landed slowly in front of the four guards as the others approached, he was about to wave a hoof in one of the guard's faces when Demo stopped him.

"Careful lad, don't wanna push our luck." He said, releasing Scout, "And they probably ain't like the Brattish royal guards." He added as he and Scout crept past the guards and into the entrance of the hive, the other mercenaries and princess following them, Heavy going last.

Only Medic noticed the changeling guards glance at the giant earth pony, before the unicorn could warn the others or even take note of the action another headache made it seem irrelevant.

Once inside the hive, the group looked around at the many passageways and quickly realised that they didn't really know where Spy might be. As a group they decided to head downwards, hopefully to where the prison cells would be, they followed paths at random and sometimes ending up back where they started. The mercenaries unable to agree on a route.

After what felt like an eternity of aimlessly wandering, Cadence stopped and stomped her hoof, "Do any of you actually have a plan or are we just lost!" She demanded, trying not to slip into Royal Canterlot tone in her frustration.

The mercenaries grinned sheepishly, Cadence blinked, "Not even a [i]follow the left wall[/i]?"

"We would do, but Sniper thinks that will get us more lost." Demo muttered.

"Keeping to the left would just lead us in a circle, not get us lost." The griffin growled.

"Well if you're so good at it then you lead us." Scout said with annoyance.

"I've suggested mapping the area but you blokes don't wanna do that." Sniper snapped back.

Before a fight could start, Heavy interrupted them, "Why don't we split up?" He asked.

The other mercenaries stared at him, Engineer looked to Princess Cadence and then to Heavy, "Is that really wise partner, what about the Princess?"

Cadence was about to complain when Heavy spoke again, "Like Princess said, she can look after herself, does not need as much protecting as you think." Cadence smiled at this.

"And what if one of us gets inta trouble?" Scout asked.

"Shout. Changelings cannot hear us." Heavy said simply, the others seemed satisfied by this.

"Ah still think that Pyro and me should go with the Princess, just to be sure." Engineer said.

"So we split into four and five?" Sniper asked.

"Nyet, less to cover more ground. Like threes and twos." Heavy said.

Engineer frowned slightly but Sniper nodded, "And if we get into trouble or wounded." The griffin added with a cynical tone.

"Da, Engineer and dragon with little Princess, you with Scout, Soldier and Demo, me and Medic." Heavy sorted the groups and nodded.

Sniper groaned inwardly at the thought of being stuck with Scout in a fight, Soldier and Demo cheered and Pyro purred at the Princess, who nodded, "Now that sound more like a plan." She said.

"Good choice of teams too," Demo added, "But where too?"

Heavy looked around quickly surveying the area and thought, "Head downwards, Engineer, Pyro, Princess, Soldier and Demo go right but keep to left wall. The rest go left but keep right wall. We can meet up in centre." The stallion paused, "If there is one." He added quickly.

Engineer thought for a moment, "There might be a mainframe type place, well not a mainframe but..." He shook his head, "We don't wanna get to the throne room."

"If we find it throw everything you've got at the Queen then get our asses outta there." Soldier said with a nod that made his helmet wobble.

The other mercenaries agreed and set down their designated paths, yet Engineer was still worried, so Pyro kept her guard up. Princess Cadence frowned, "I thought that you guys all worked well together."

Engineer sighed, "To be honest we haven't really been in any real fighting, not anything like this anyways. We were only recruited about a year ago, sure we've had time to bond and all but.. not really fix together as a team, the Princess didn't wanna risk us."

Cadence gave a comforting smile, "She does speak rather highly of you all, even if the guard captain hates you."

The unicorn couldn't help but blush a little at the complement, "Heh, a bunch of misfits like us.." he chuckled, "Well your guard captain's awful old, 'bout time someone replaces him."

"Aunty wants that, but none of the guards really have the..." She searched for a word, "The right feel, I guess."

Engineer blinked, "That because they all look the same or something?" Cadence giggled.

"No silly, that's just an enchantment. Did you really think that Aunty could find so many stallions that all look the same." Even Pyro sounded like she was laughing, Engineer chuckled again.

Elsewhere in the hive Demo and Soldier trotted beside one another, Demo quickly looked behind him, "Maybe we should start leaving breadcrumbs." He muttered, mainly to himself.

Soldier blinked, "You brought snacks?" He asked.

Demo sighed, "No I dinnae mean..."

Soldier cut him off with a gasp, "Are you going to teleport bread?" He asked excitedly.

"It's a figure of speech lad." Demo said before he could be interrupted again, he shook his head, "I don't want ta get lost, that's all."

"We'll just blast this place to hell and go home for a beer." Soldier said.

"Aye, go down to the pub for pint." Demo added and laughed, "That reminds me, not that Engie's not here..." Demo pulled out a bottle of scrumpy with his magic, uncorked it and took a long swig.

Soldier snorted, "So you _did_ bring snacks."

"For me lad, not for you." The unicorn said before taking another sip, "If we do get in a fight here it's gonna be one hell of a show."

The pegasus nodded in a agreement, "And we're gonna send each and every one of those love sucking maggots back to their mamma's in a box."

Demo laughed, his bottle was nearly empty already and he could feel the scrumpy starting to have an effect on him, "Aye, those sneaky little snakes in the grass are gonna get blasted into thin gruel." He pulled a second bottle out his saddle bag, "Gonna make me bag as light as a wee feather by the end of this."

In the next passage over Scout and Sniper quietly glided along, the griffin was trying to make plans for what he would do if they were found by changelings, the pegasus had quickly gotten bored at Sniper's silence.

"So, er, what's it like in the Griffin Kingdom?" Scout asked, snapping the griffin out of his thoughts.

"Didn't come from the Griffin Kingdom." Sniper muttered.

"...But you're a griffin..." Scout said after a moment silence.

"Yeah, so?"

"A griffin not from the Griffin Kingdom?" The pegasus asked, "Are your parents griffins? Did you move?"

"My parents are Minotaurs, just like the rest of Austneighlia." Sniper said bluntly.

Scout squinted at the griffin for a long time, trying to work out if he was serious. Sniper was as straight faced as he was before, as though he didn't notice anything wrong. The pegasus scrunched up his face, "..right." was all he said before finding a more interesting topic of conversation. Himself.

"My ma raised all eight of us all on her own," He started, "We all different types of ponies and my brothers were in a lot of gangs and stuff but they were always faster then me so little old Scout said _you know what, I'm gonna fly faster then any of these losers_ and he did. Like we were like wild dogs man, no one could stop us."

"What about your dad?" Sniper asked.

Scout shrugged, "Don't know, don't care, why should I care, he don't care enough about my ma to stay with her so I don't care about him. Probably don't even know he has an awesome little pegasus but that's too bad for him 'cause he missed out on having a perfect son like me."

"Right." Sniper muttered.

In the passage furthest from Princess Cadence, Heavy and Medic walked silently, the giant earth pony seeming quite happy to stop if Medic's headaches forced him to stop walking.

"We should have seem somebody by now." Medic groaned in German, Heavy just nodded.

"Remind me how your ubercharge works." He said abruptly in Russian.

Medic blinked, "What? Why?"

Heavy shrugged, "Might take your mind off the pain, I don't know."

The unicorn sighed, "It's an old spell that I manipulated to my magic, it takes pain and damage and converts it into pure magic that makes flesh strong enough to survive anything and it..." He rubbed his temples and started moving again, "And this really isn't helping."

"Can it survive alicorn magic?" Heavy asked, following him.

"God I don't know, I've never really felt like slapping Princess Celestia across the face in the hopes that my magic is stronger than hers." Medic said shaking his head, he sighed and stopped walking again, "This isn't right.. something isn't right.." He muttered.

"What's not right." Heavy asked, standing nearby the unicorn.

"Everything.. you and.."

"Me?" Heavy said with a tone of annoyance, "I'm not the crazy one."

A hurt look crossed Medic's expression, he shook his head and turned to leave, "I'm going back to find the others... I..I don't like this."

Before the unicorn could take more than three steps away he was slammed into the walk by a powerful forelimb and held their by his neck, his vision blurred for a moment as a second pain started throbbing in his head. Once his vision restored it'self he saw Heavy, his eyes glowing a strange green, Medic met his eyes and before he could do anything his mind went blank.

'Heavy' chuckled cruelly, dropping his voice disguise, "Aww, crushes are cute aren't they?" He said mockingly to the now fully hypnotised Medic, he inhaled deeply, "We don't get much power from them but it's more than enough to take down you petty little ponies, then the love princess will be ours."

Medic rolled his head to one side and pushed his back legs against the fake Heavy's chest, as though he was trying to push him away and defend himself, the fake Heavy simply tutted, "I'm not the one you'll be fighting, dear doctor."


	5. The Hive - Part 2

"So er, do any of you dopes know where we are?" Scout had asked the group.

The room that the mercenaries and princess had regrouped in was a large, low ceilinged hall of some sort, with green gunk dribbling down from it. The walls were the same colour as the outside of the hive, large, rotting pillars of the same shade were off to the sides.

"Maybe we should move on a bit further." Sniper said.

"What about Heavy and Medic?" Engineer asked, he looked around. The group had split up into four but only three had returned.

"Those passage ways could have led them to anyway," The griffin pointed out, "They could be waiting for us up ahead."

Princess Cadence stood off to one side, deep in thought. The mercenaries all turned to her when she finally spoke up. "Don't you think it's a bit weird that Heavy knew where these passageways would lead?"

The mercenaries hadn't considered this, but Demo quickly shook it off. "Aye lassie, but Heavy's a fine planner." The unicorn finished off another bottle of scrumpy and belched.

Movement caught Demo's good eye, he turned to see Heavy and Medic standing in one of the passageways. A ribbon of blue magic from Medic's horn was attached to Heavy's body. "Oh laddies, we were just talking about you two." He greeted them.

"It's about bloody time you two got here." Sniper snapped. He frowned at Medic, the unicorn wasn't holding himself up like he did normally, his head bowed and his eyes misty. "You alright doc?"

Medic didn't react to Sniper's question, he didn't even seem to register the griffin's presence. Heavy chuckled darkly, "Oh don't worry, he's fine. Just had a little accident, that's all."

Scout jumped into the air and glared at Heavy, "How come you can suddenly speak Equestrian?" He demanded, getting up in the giant's face.

"Well if I spoke like an idiot all the time I wouldn't be able to get my point across, now would I?" Heavy said calmly, "Now shut up."

The gathered mercenaries fell silent, Princess Cadence backed away. Heavy glared at the group, "We remember how you defeated us before and it will not happen again. You were stupid enough to come chasing after a traitor and for that you will fall here."

"What in the hell are you going on about partner?" Engineer asked as Pyro growled over his shoulder.

Demo's eye widened in realisation. "He's bloody one of them!" He shouted, darting away and pulling fireworks out of his saddle bag. The other mercenaries also got into battle stances. 'Heavy' only laughed.

"Too late." He growled. A green, fire-like magic appeared around the giant, taking over his whole body. When the bright magic ceased the mercenaries saw what he really was. A changeling.

The changeling was larger then the brutes they had encountered in Teufort, with a thicker hide and structure. White tusks stuck out of it's mouth, it's horn was long and jagged with dragon like spikes along it's back and face. It's eyes glowed green as he laughed at the mercenaries.

Those with wings had taken to the air, Engineer and Demo stayed on the ground. "Medic, get out of there!" Engineer called.

"He can't hear you." The changeling said in a mocking tone. Medic was barely able to lift his head, let alone run away. "And now, you will all fall here."

Scout looked around and smirked. "There's only one of you and like eight of us. This is gonna be easy."

Pyro seemed to agree, she let out a muffled laugh and opened her mouth, showing off a red glow from within her maw. Before she had a chance to spew flames, Engineer grabbed her jaw with his magic, forcefully closing her mouth. "Don't," He hissed, "You'll hit the doc."

The changeling laughed. "Fearing to hurt one of your own instead of protecting yourself makes you weak," He said, "And here it will be your demise". The dragon growled, as the magic grip on her face was released.

The giant's horn lit up with a bright green and fired bolts of magic at the flying mercenaries, forcing them to scatter. Engineer backed up to Princess Cadence and began setting up the mini sentry he had brought with him. The device was quickly set up, the short unicorn's horn lit up, a ball of white magic forming at the tip and then dropping into the machine. It suddenly whirred to life, pointed it'self at the changeling (who was now tormenting the flying mercenaries with bolts of green magic) and began to fire at the changeling with rapid speed.

Engineer stumbled slightly, feeling slightly weaker due to some magic being sacrificed. He turned to Princess Cadence. "This thing won't touch any of us, it's fine using it, don't worry."

"That's not what I'm worried about, MOVE!" Cadence suddenly grabbed Engineer with her magic and pulled out of the way of the charging changeling. He stomped on the machine as it helplessly tried to defend it'self.

"Stupid toys won't help you now." The changeling growled. The unicorn stood defensively in front of Cadence but got knocked aside with powerful magic. Engineer crashed into Demo, the changeling glared down at the princess of love. He laughed mockingly. She took a breath in and flared her wings, shooting a beam of blue magic into the face of the changeling. He roared in pain as Cadence made her escape. The pain was brief, cured by Medic's magic.

Sniper swore, judging by the size of the changeling, it should have been an easy target. But being on the front lines was not what the griffon was used to. Being forced to swoop and dodge out the way while keeping aim had meant that he'd only been able to land body shots, quickly healed by Medic.

Now that the giant was recovering from a blow to the face, Sniper had his chance. He lined up the shot, held steady and released the string from his claws. The arrow flew through the air towards the changeling... and harmlessly bounced off his ubercharged body.

"Aw piss!" Sniper shouted, grabbing his hat and swooping away as another barrage of green bolts shot towards him.

Demo blinked. "He's wasting the uber!" He shouted, pulling the unconscious Engineer onto his back and darting away.

"We gotta separate them." Scout said. His face suddenly lit up. "I got an idea.". The young pegasus reached into his bag and pulled out a baseball, he threw it up into the air and swung his bat. The ball soared through the air and hit Medic square in the forehead.

The white unicorn stumbled backwards, his horn flared briefly before going out all together. Medic's body was still ubercharged, but the changelings was not.

"Aye nice going lad." Demo called up to the pegasus.

"What can I say, I'm the best shot there is." Scout boasted, Sniper rolled his eyes behind his shades.

The changeling whirled around, trying to work out what had happened. Medic had recovered and trained the healing beam back onto the giant.

"We still gotta get them apart though." The griffin said.

"Who the hell is stupid enough to dive in and grab Medic?" Scout said, Soldier blinked and grinned. "I'll just throw another ball at him." Scout continued, grabbing a second baseball from his bag.

"What you gonna do, hit him in the head till he falls unconscious?" Sniper snapped.

The pegasus grinned. "Hey, that's a good idea!"

While the two were talking, Soldier had been discussing his new plan with Demo. The unicorn nodded wearily. "This better work, lad"

Soldier grinned, "How could it fail!"

"Don't get me started." Demo muttered, he levitated Engineer off of his back and set him down with Princess Cadence. He took a flashbang from his saddlebag and nodded to Soldier, the pegasus taking off.

The red unicorn stood to one side of the changelings. "Oi!" he shouted. When the changeling turned Demo lit the flashbag. The sudden light and noise startled the changeling, forcing him to stumble backwards and shield his eyes. While distracted, Soldier swooped down from the air, grabbed Medic, and flew away with him.

The recovered changeling roared with rage, shooting green bolts at the retreating Soldier. The pegasus bobbed and weaved, making himself a more difficult target. However, the room was smaller than the outside, and Soldier wasn't very fast. A stray bolt collided with one of Soldier's rear legs, knocking him and Medic out of the air.

The pair landed beside the recovering Engineer and Princess Cadence. The latter throwing up a shield around all four, the bolts bouncing off harmlessly.

"Ma'am." Soldier said calmly picking himself off of Medic, "This could have been very helpful a little while ago." The young princess only laughed nervously

"Nah this is good." Engineer said while rubbing his head and looking at the shield, "How does it work?"

Cadence winced at a bolt hitting the shield, "Things can go out but they can't come in."

"Solly, help me set this up." Engineer gestured to the remains of his sentry, then looked at Medic. "How do we get him working?"

"I don't know!" Cadence shouted with more panic in her voice then she had intended.

"It's alright, it's alright." Engineer reassured the princess. "We'll figure it out."

Meanwhile, Scout and Pyro were pestering the great changeling. The former swooping in and out of the changeling's face; just fast enough to avoid any magical blasts. The latter was setting fire to the changeling every time it made an attack for Scout. Sniper and Demo were forming a plan to one side.

"We gotta attack while it can't bloody see us." Demo explained, "I could use a flashbang, but that would mean that I couldn't set up the stickies. Why don't you take.."

The unicorn was cut off by the griffin, "Why don't I use this?" Sniper took a jar filled with yellow liquid out of his bag.

"Is that..."

"Yep."

Demo cringed, "Alright laddie, if it works, use it."

"Ready mate?"

The pair nodded to each other before taking their positions. Sniper swooped up to the changeling's face as Pyro and Scout retreated.

"Oi! Wanker!" He shouted, catching the changeling's attention. Before it could react, Sniper throw the jar, hitting the changeling in the head. The glass shattered, covering the changeling in yellow liquid and broken glass.

The changeling gagged. "Foul creature! Changelings will rule and the world will be glad to see your kind extinct!", it bellowed.

"Wow, that's a low blow man." Scout muttered while gliding over the changeling's back.

"You think I care!?" The changeling shouted.

"He wasn't talking about that laddie!" Came a shout from behind the changeling. It whirled in time to see Pyro carrying Demo away before an explosion send the changeling flying backwards. Crashing not far from Princess Cadence's shield. Before the changeling could recover he was pelted with magical blasts, not as powerful as it's own, but still painful.

On the other side of the shield Engineer laughed, he had been forced to hold the sentry together with his magic while Soldier aimed. The sentry was badly damaged, yet worked like a charm.

"You gotta teach us how to make this here shield ma'am." He said as he and Soldier forced the changeling back.

"I promise I will as soon as we get back." Cadence replied.

Engineer chuckled, "I can live with that."

The changeling backed up, trying to get out of range of the sentry, only to back up into Pyro. The dragon roared and spewed flames at the changeling as it turned, the fire catching on the changeling's wings, side and neck.

An inequine screech escaped the changeling, forcing the five (conscious) ponies and one griffin to cover their ears and drop their magic. Pyro seemed unaffected, she watched the flames lick at the changelings form as it crumpled. Only when the body stopped moving did Medic suddenly jolt to life.

"Heavy is a changeling!" The unicorn blurted out.

"You're a bit late to the party mate." Sniper muttered as the mercenaries gathered around Medic.

"You alright doc?" Demo asked.

Medic blinked twice and looked around. "I think so.." He frowned, "Where are we?"

"The changeling's hive." Engineer answered.

"WAS!" Medic almost shrieked, Sniper was quick to hush him

"Those pikers know we're here, we need to find Spy and get out." The griffin hissed.

"What about Heavy? Do the changelings have him too?" Scout asked, he looked around warily.

"Yes, they do." Princess Cadence said quietly. The mercenaries turned to stare at the princess of love. "I don't know much about changelings, I remember aunty telling me stories about them. They feed on love, the more love they take from a pony, the weaker that pony gets. They take the love by pretending to be somebody that that pony loves. I know you already knew most of that from Spy, but that's not my point."

Soldier frowned, "So how that love maggot get Medic?"

"Move on." Medic said quickly, Cadence nodded.

"You probably won't like where this is going," She added. "The pony that the are pretending to be gets taken away. They either get locked away or put into a... Cocoon."

Engineer grimaced. "So what does that do?"

Cadence sighed. "The cocoon will, eventually, turn that pony into a changeling."

The gathered mercenaries paled. They sat in silence for a short time before Medic spoke.

"What are we waiting for? We need to save him!" He said, jumping to his hooves.

"We don't know where the cocoons are kept, we should find Spy first." Sniper interjected.

"We don't know where Spy is kept either." Scout added.

"The longer we sit around the longer they're both in danger." Engineer said, deciding to be the voice of reason. He looked to Cadence, "How long does the cocooning process take?"

Cadence shrugged, "I'm sorry." She whispered.

Engineer sighed, "It's fine."

Demo stood up. "I say we get out of this room and save whoever we come across first." He said with a nod, "And no splitting up this time." He added.

"Demo's right," Engineer said "Those things are probably looking for us now."

"So which way.." Cadence started to say before she was interrupted.

"COMPANY!" Soldier suddenly shouted, making few of the group flinch. He marched away from the group. "Form ranks and move out maggots!"

"Does he even know what he's on about?" Scout muttered.

"Staying in formation would help." Engineer said. He thought for a moment. "Scout, Soldier and me in front, Sniper, Demo and Pyro in the back, Cadence and Medic in the middle."

Cadence frowned, "Didn't I just prove that I didn't need protecting?"

"Eeyup, you sure did ma'am. That's why if we need that shield of yours, you can protect all of us with it." Engineer gave a kind smile to the princess, who beamed back. "Same goes for Medic."

The group formed outside the entrance to the passageway that Soldier had apparently chosen. The older pegasus stomped a hoof on the ground, "Quick march." He said, having caught on about being quiet.

"We'll crush any love maggot that tries to hurt our team."


	6. Hunting

Author's note: Sorry about the wait, I guess I've been drawing more and kinda neglecting this serious, I do hope to get it back on track though as I have an idea for a squeal (or just another story in the same universe)

If you want to see my art (which, as I said, I update more frequency than I write) then you can check out my deviantart at .com, I draw a lot of ponified mercenaries

But again, tell me if I got any German wrong, or if I need to correct any mistakes, you know, usual stuff.

* * *

Every little noise seemed to scare the mercenaries, they'd all flinch at once and glare in the same direction. That was one thing Princess Cadence had noticed, among other things.

Cadence had tried to make a few mental notes about all of them; the way Engineer took the lead, how nervously excited Medic seemed without Heavy, Scout and Soldier being able to stay silent when it was necessary. Pyro was the only mystery to the young princess, partly because she'd never seen an adult dragon before, let alone a female. She'd read stories about the female dragons being even more fierce and dominant than their male counterparts, so how was Pyro okay with all these stallions?

The Princess let the thought drop, she carefully trotted alongside Medic. While the unicorn was still tired, he had recovered fairly quickly and carried the air of 'nervously excited'. _If only there was a word to describe such a thing_, Cadence idly thought. The white unicorn was healing each pony (plus griffin and dragon) in turn, he even cast the beam on the love Princess. She'd been surprised by the tingling warmth it gave her, she felt powerful, alert, ready for anything.

"Overheal." Was Medic's only, muttered explanation.

Sniper, Demo and Pyro crept behind them, constantly checking their backs. Sniper was nervous, Cadence could see that quite clearly, his wings twitched at anything and he'd pick his claws when the group halted. Demo and Pyro were far more relaxed, the unicorn getting steadily more and more drunk but still had the good sense to not belch too loudly. The dragon however, was her normal, quite yet curious self. She'd pause the longest at every archway, sometimes when Cadence turned she'd find Pyro staring right at her, only for the dragon to wave happily and hum something unintelligible.

Taking the lead was the last three mercenaries, Engineer, Soldier and Scout. These three Cadence knew were all from Equestria, no weird accents or different languages or different species all together, no these ponies felt most normal to the Princess. She trusted these three the most because of it, it felt wrong to think that way but Cadence couldn't shake it. Her Aunty had thrown her in with a group of strangers, dragons were to be feared, changelings were unknown, she'd never met a griffin, Demo was drunk, Heavy was huge (and Cadence had yet to speak to the real one) and Medic had a distinct dash of crazy. While Soldier wasn't the most sane, she still trusted the three in front of her the most, Engineer more so. She still cursed herself and the nobles for giving her such a racist frame of mind. This group seemed to be challenging that however.

The Royal guard work in unison, but they didn't quite have the same diversity as these nine. Cadence could tell that they were still new to each other, still working each other out.

Cadence stopped behind Engineer for what felt like the a hundredth time. They had reached a fork in the path. The short unicorn nodded to Scout, the latter swooped down the left path, when he returned he shot down the right one.

He fluttered back to the group and landed, "Alright so I go left and it's horrible, it smells weird and there's all this green glowly shit on everything, floors, walls you name it. So I'm like nah I don't think so and go down right and everyone's there, _everyone_. You got all these changelings buzzing around so I nope my ass outta there so now we're screw. We either get shit on our fur or we get caught."

Cadence frowned, "I would have thought that the right path is obvious."

"She's right!" Soldier said, "We'll go down the right hoof path, because it is right, and kill everyone while we still have the element of surprise!"

"No! No, that isn't what I meant!"

"Laddie I don't think we ever had the element of surprise." Demo muttered, "What with Heavy being a changeling an' all."

"But we're still invisible! Remember?" Soldier pointed out, the rest of the mercenaries eye's widened in realisation.

"I completely forgot." Engineer murmured.

"So that's why they didn't see me." Scout said, "I almost flew right into one of 'em if it wasn't for these bad boys." He flared his wings for effect.

"So we've been creeping around here like wee bloody mice for bloody NOTHING!" Demo almost roared, Sniper still shushed him.

Medic tapped his chin thoughtfully, "Those changeling guards outside the hive could see Heavy, well, not Heavy but a.." Medic shook his head and continued, "Well they saw _him_ but Miss Pauling didn't."

"What's your point, sawbones?" Engineer asked.

"Mein point is that maybe they couldn't see him, but they sensed him. So it's possible that they can sense us, even if they can't see us."

Sniper frowned, "But that juggernaut of a bug could see us bloody well, and it couldn't _sense_ Demo and Pyro setting up bombs behind it."

Medic hummed, but Engineer nodded, "So let's say they can only sense other changelings, right? That _juggernaut_ could be sensed by the the guards so they know we're here. The big guy could see us because the spell was cast on him as well."

The group nodded in confirmation, "But does this go anywhere important truckie?" Sniper asked.

"Listen fellers," He pause and nodded to Cadence and Pyro, "And you gals, I know you ain't gonna like this but.."

"You're gonna split us up again." Sniper finished bluntly, the mercenaries turned to Engineer in shock.

"Listen, just split in half, they'll be expecting us and that ain't good. Scout proved that they still can't really see us, hopefully they don't know that the juggernaut is down. Right may look like a trap but if they can't sense the big guy then they won't sense us, we can sneak through no problem."

"That means don't take Solly that way." Demo pointed out.

"Aww." The pegasus pouted.

Engineer just ignored the pegasus and nodded, "Yeah, we'll need speed and stealth that way, I'm just gonna suggest Scout, Sniper, me and Pyro. We're the quietest and Scout can make up for it in speed. If there's a lot of them then my guess is Spy's down there."

Cadence frowned, "First you say it's a trap now you say it'll lead us to Spy?"

"We just don't know what's down there and it could be one of two things; a trap or something they don't want us to find. The rest of you are our power, but you still gotta be careful." Engineer insisted.

"But why? What are we even doing." Medic asked.

"You gotta search the place," Sniper guessed, Engineer nodded, the griffin continued, "If Spy's not down there then you've got to find 'im, but you lot don't know what your gonna find."

Cadence nodded slowly, understanding, "Send in the most powerful to fight what you don't understand."

"But what about that green shit." Scout asked, flittering about above them.

"I can carry them." Soldier beamed. Medic shuddered at the suggestion, Soldier either didn't notice or just didn't care.

"So it's settled then."

The hive hummed, the noise came from everywhere and only got louder.

Soldier had insisted that he could carry both unicorns across the questionable green gloop, but they'd both refused. Cadence suggested that they each carry one. The decision for _who-carried-who_ was made simply; Soldier was larger than the Princess and while Demo and Medic were the same height, the Germane was leaner.

The gloop covered more ground than anyone was expecting, Soldier had to keep touching down on clear pieces of ground to kick off back into the air. He held Demo tightly under one forelimb. Cadence's alicorn magic made it easier to stay in the air with the added weight of Medic on her back, but the unicorn clearly wasn't happy, she could feel how tense he was and how much he wanted to get off of her and back on the ground.

Scout was right about one thing: the place stunk. It was the unpleasant mixture of rotting wood and musk, the sudden humidity didn't help.

Eventually the gloop ended and the pathway opened up into a hall. The flying ponies landed, Medic almost leaping off the Princess, he hit the floor and bounced slightly, the other three finding the same when they touched ground.

"Odd." Medic muttered. He pushed down lightly on the spongy floor with one hoof, when he removed the hoof the floor refilled the space it had been.

Demo experimented with the floor as well, before bending over and smelling it. Medic and Cadence stared at him incredulously. He rose and snorted, "I think this stuff still got gloop in it." He pushed down on the floor hard with two hooves in the same place, the green gloop spilled out from tiny holes.

"But, why?" Princess Cadence asked, she stared at the ground.

"Are those eggs?" Soldier asked, his voice half way across the room.

The other three ponies looked up and, for the first time, took in the room they had wandered into. In the corners and creases of the room, the green gloop seemed to be flowing from the walls. Sticking to the gloop, were little orbs of green, opaque and shiny, they floated in the gloop. Some were bigger they were a darker green and were separated from the gloop and their smaller counterparts. These larger 'eggs' were sticky, all piled together in the middle on the room.

Demo cringed, "Did we just wander into a hatchery." Cadence nodded numbly.

"We should turn back and regroup." Soldier ordered.

"No, I think we should look around, your friend might be here."

"Why would they bring Heavy to a hatchery." Medic gulped, "Oh götter what are they doing to him."

Cadence winced, "Probably not what you're thinking."

"Putting eggs in him." Soldier said. Cadence shot him an annoyed look.

Medic look worried for all of a few seconds before he stroked his chin and hummed, "Well that certainly would make an interesting experiment, but when would the eggs come out? And how? Of course you could add a uterus but then what?" He looked at the eggs in the centre of the room, "Of course eggs don't need to stay in the mother but these seem to grow even while outside. Perhaps this is just a big incubator, so the eggs would need to be fertilized while still inside the mother... Well unless changelings are any different to doves."

The room was silent, save for the gentle humming from all around. "...Wait what?" Cadence asked.

"Well yes I suppose changelings would be different from doves, by the look of it I'd say they're more like insects." He adjusted his glasses and grinned at the eggs, black blobs wiggled around inside of the the opaque shell. "Maybe if I replicate the experiment myself..."

He reached a hoof out to the eggs only to have Princess Cadence grab his hoof with her magic and pull him back, "Are you crazy!?"

Medic just blinked in response, Cadence shook her head, "One minute your worried sick about Heavy and now you want to put eggs in him?!"

The white unicorn huffed and snatched his hoof away, "I never said I'd put eggs in _him_, while he would be the perfect test subject, his strong und powerful und.. oh, what's the word for it, 'Well insulated?'"

"You mean fat?" Demo asked, Medic snorted.

"Nein, no that's not what I mean. Und no, I wouldn't put the eggs in _him_.. Maybe Soldier.."

"Negative oktoberfest, I've already got my raccoons to look after, I don't need any more children." Soldier said, straight-faced. Demo sighed and facehoofed.

"Do ya understand why I drink now lassie?" Cadence nodded numbly.

Medic snorted again, "Remind me to talk about my experiments in Germane next time so that none of you dummköpfe can ruin it for me."

Princess Cadence tried to protest further, but Demo shook his head, "Leave 'im be, we'll go have a look around." The unicorn turned to his pegasus friend, "Soldier, keep an eye out."

Soldier saluted, his hoof hitting his helmet, "Sir yes sir, am I looking out for changelings or Medic putting eggs in me."

"Err, both laddie."

As Cadence and Demo found, the small room branched off of a much larger hatchery. The pair were able to crouch on a higher ledge that surrounded the room. This room was different, it had changelings flittering between piles of eggs, the gloop dripping from the low ceilings. These changelings however, were much different from the ones the mercenaries had fought, they were paler in colour and had longer, softer looking manes. They were also humming softly, almost cooing the eggs, the strangest part was, the eggs seemed to be humming back.

Demo wrinkled his nose, "Alright, maybe we should turn back, doesn't see to be much here."

"They can't see us, they may be more passages." Cadence reminded the red unicorn.

The unicorn considered this and nodded, "Alright, but we best be slow, we're not the most stealthy." He belched, as if proving a point.

"Ma'am." Came Soldier's voice

"You can just call me Cadence, Soldier." Cadence said, not looking back.

"Cadence ma'am."

Princess Cadence sighed and turned around to face the pegasus, "Yes Soldier?"

"Medic is touching the eggs." He announced.

"What! Why? Tell 'im to stop it." Demo said, annoyed.

Soldier held up his hooves, "Don't panic, he hasn't put them in me." The pegasus paused to look over his shoulder, "..yet."

"Bloody hell." Demo pushed past the pegasus and back into the smaller room.

Medic was sitting beside the largest pile of eggs in the middle of the room, he held a scalpel in his magic and was tapping on the dark green shells.

"Medic, no! Put 'em down." Demo shouted, Cadence filched despite knowing that the changelings couldn't hear them.

"Was!" Medic jump in alarm, taking a fighting stance. He relaxed when he saw Demo, "What? I'm not touching them."

"He's lying!" Soldier yelled back, he flew up to Medic, "I saw it with my own two eyes! He was touching those eggs! I know he was!"

Medic stammered for a moment and huffed, "You can't even see anything with this." The unicorn hit Soldier's helmet with his scalpel, it wobbled atop the pegasus' head.

"Ha! That's were you're wrong maggot! I can see everything, this just stops you from _seeing_ me see everything."

"You're both bloody idiots!" Demo joined the shouting match.

Soldier landed with a crunch, "No need to shout Demo."

Medic stared at Soldier's hooves in horror, "Eh, Soldier would you.."

"Speak up maggot." Medic just pointed downwards, Soldier followed his hoof, "Oh."

The pegasus flapped away from the egg he had just broken, Medic backed up as murky slime crept towards him. Out of the slime a black blob emerged, it's head bobbed up and two big, glowing blue eyes opened. The creature blinked twice and looked at Medic, who pulled a face and backed away.

"Is it a baby?" The unicorn hissed, "Can it see me?"

Soldier swooped down and patted the baby changeling on the head before anyone could stop him, the baby cooed in delight.

"Don't do that, we need to get away." Cadence whispered.

Medic nodded, apparently regaining some sense, and dragged Soldier away from the cooing baby. The pegasus pouted, but allowed himself to be moved. The group made their way to the bigger hatchery but a shrill noise made them all flinch as one.

"WHHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

The baby was crying.

Demo noticed one of the changelings flying towards the source of the noise and realised that they were blocking the entrance, "Scatter." He hissed.

The group split into two pairs and hugged the wall, the changeling buzzed past them and hovered over the crying infant, humming gently to it. After a few moments the baby stopped crying and began to hum along.

"This way." Cadence whispered. The Princess crept across the ledge and down a slope, leading into the hatchery proper. She was able to weave between the piles of eggs with the three mercenaries in tow, the four of them reaching the other side of the room with ease. She nodded, "There, that wasn't so hard."

"Don't say that lass, you'll jinx it." Demo muttered.

"There's a path way up here." Medic called, he pointed to a large hole in the wall.

Cadence frowned, "Are you sure that's a path?"

A changeling buzzed past them and into the hole, Medic grinned and stood on his hind legs to get a better view. "Just as long as it doesn't go up, we're fine."

"You lead the way then, doc." Demo said, the red unicorn grabbed the other's rump in his magic and pushed him through the gap. Medic yelped in surprise and faceplanted, he quickly jumped up and dusted himself off.

"Come on then dummköpfe." He said, lighting up his horn and trotting down the path. The remaining three jumped up and joined him.

The path was slimy and dark, clearly not made for walking on. The group slipped and and skidded occasionally, along with all the twists and turns, but had managed to keep their balance so far. The hole was also very difficult to breath in.

"This is the worst idea." Medic huffed.

"It was your bloody idea." Demo hissed.

"Don't worry, if we don't find an exit we'll just turn around and come back." Cadence said in an attempt to stop another argument forming.

Medic hummed and stopped walking without warning, Demo crashed into his back, Cadence knocked into Demo and Soldier stopped a few feet away from them. "What's going on oktoberfest?"

"There's a drop and, and why do you keep calling me that?" Medic said, irritably.

"It's your codename."

"Why do I have a codename?"

"So that no-one knows your a medic."

Medic stammered in confusion, "W-what? That's, that's just stupid why are you.."

Without warning Soldier suddenly rammed the group down the slope, the three of them screaming as they slid down the slimy path. Soldier jumped after them with a _"GERONIMO!"_.

At the other end of the slide, the two unicorns and alicorn flew out, landing gracelessly on the thankfully spongy flooring. Moments later Soldier joined them, landing ontop of the three.

Medic choked, "Herr Soldier I hope you realise that my real name isn't _Medic_. Medic is already a codename, I don't need two."

Soldier gasped, then burst out laughing. He hauled Medic onto his hooves, "Oh that's a good one, you almost got me there." The pegasus wiped a tear from his eye as Medic stared at him, "Next you'll be telling me your not really from Equestria."

"I'm not, I'm from Germaney."

The pegasus was silent, then started laughing again, Medic rolled his eyes and pushed away from Soldier. He found himself joining Cadence and Demo in staring in awe at the room they had landed in.

It was glowing green, the whole room in the same eerie colour. Pony sized sacs lined the walls, transparent in the middle and stringy at either end. Most were empty, save for a few with pony _shaped_ blobs inside them, curled up in foetal positions. Some of them twitched and moved unnaturally.

Medic was the first to snap out of his awe, he ran up to the nearest sac and squinted at the figure inside. "Heavy?" He whispered. The creature's eyes snapped open, Medic yipped and jumped away. "Nein, nein." He muttered before turning to the next occupied sac.

Demo shook himself from his stupor, "He's not gonna be in one of those doc, he's too big."

The changeling they'd seen use the tunnel before appeared again, pushing it's way through a small entrance, buzzing past them and flying back through the tunnel. Cadence frowned at the entrance. She approached it with caution, then pushed the walls to the side and peered in. The Princess called to the other mercenaries and showed them what she had found.

A room for a single giant sac, hanging from the ceiling. Inside Heavy, the real Heavy, floated upside down. The giant looked like he was asleep. Medic let out a horrified gasp, he pulled his bonesaw out of his saddlebag (which had somehow survived the trip) and threw it with surprising force at the stringy material holding the cocoon to the ceiling. The cocoon dropped from the ceiling, crashing onto the floor and bursting open, Heavy spilled onto the ground along with a wave of green slime.

Heavy coughed and gagged, Medic rushed to his side, slipping in the slime but remaining upright. The unicorn cast his healing spell on the giant earth pony, who wiped the slime from his eyes.

"You alright lad?" Demo said, taking a step forward.

"Ah!" Heavy flinched as if he'd just noticed his teammates, he snorted, "Tiny bugs cannot trick me again."

The gathered mercenaries frowned, "What have those maggots been doing to you?" Soldier yelled, he flew up to Heavy and grabbed his face, "What did you tell them?!"

"Nothing," The giant rumbled, he gave Soldier a hard shove and got to his hooves. He glanced once at Medic and nodded, "Nyet, you are real."

"You were quite easily convinced mein freund."

"They used the wrong horn colour, was all green. Not doktor's colour."

"I see."

"Somepony had to of heard that." Cadence called from the entrance, "We have to go!"

"Lassie, there's no way our Heavy's getting through that gap." Demo pointed out.

"Ja, and we can't get him back up that slope." Medic added.

"We can't just take him another way, the changeling's will see him." Cadence hissed.

"Wait, explain to Heavy what's going on." The giant demanded.

Demo started to explain, then frowned, "What do you last remember?"

A thoughtful look crossed Heavy's face, "When tiny Soldier flew away with doktor."

Demo whistled, then briefly caught the giant up on what he had missed.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the hive, Engineer found himself with the short stick. He hadn't counted on the need for flight, in hindsight, he really should of. It was silent, fast and they could weave through the changelings without any trouble. The unicorn however, ended up clinging to Pyro and the flying members of the team effortlessly swooped around the changelings. Engineer told himself that he was just imagining the changelings turning slightly as they flew past, _there's no way they'd feel a breeze and think it was us_, he thought.

What wasn't helping the unicorn's nerves was the fact that he's never flown before, he'd never even been in the air. He could teleport, why should he ever need to fly. He was starting to feel slightly sick with the way Pyro swayed from side to side as she flew. The only way he could distract himself was to talk with Pyro, but even that made him anxious. Not the dragon's mumbled replies but more _what if they can hear us?_.

Eventually, the ride ended. Engineer was glad to dismount.

"Alright mates," Sniper whispered even though they couldn't be heard, "We gotta take this nice 'nd slow, we don't need any attention."

"Why not, we're freakin' invisible man." Scout said, he did a loop-de-loop before landing.

"Just don't touch them and don't move anything," Sniper hissed, "They'll still see that."

Scout snorted, "Whatever."

"Truckie, what's the plan." The griffin addressed the unicorn.

Engineer blinked, "You tell me slim, you were sounding pretty confident there." He said, still feeling a little nauseous.

Sniper fell silent, "..'preciate it, but I'm not a leader."

"Yeah but this is your forte Snipes," Scout said, "Your chance to boss us about. Oh wait, you already have."

The griffin was still uneasy, "I'll help but I won't lead, alright?"

Engineer sighed, he managed to rid himself of his nauseous long enough to survey the area. Here there were less changelings swarming, they were perched on a high ledge which lead into a small cave like room. Engineer guessed it was some kind of nest or home. Below them the changelings swarmed, the buzzing of their thin wings deafening.

The unicorn peered over the edge and below, "We need a way outta this room, I'd say."

"So where to." Scout said.

Engineer turned to find the other three mercenaries looking at him expectantly, "Oh Celestia, I don't know. Y'all got wings, you figure something out."

The three flying mercenaries exchanged looks, Sniper spook up, "Sorry truckie."

Engineer sighed, "It's fine, I'm sorry too. Ah don't really know what I'm doin'."

Pyro stared curiously at the flying changelings, _not only_ did she notice how flammable they all were but she also noticed that none of them were talking to one another as well as the fact that they were all moving. She hummed as she lent on the edge of the ledge, scratching at her chin thoughtfully as she noticed more and more.

Scout was the first to notice how the dragon was behaving, "What's with you, mumbles?"

"Humm." She said, pointing down to the floor, the other three joining her at the ledge.

Far down on the ground, two changelings were standing still, their blue armour glinted in the dim light. Sniper reconsigned them, they looked similar to the guards outside the hive itself. This time, they appeared to be standing outside an archway of some sort.

Engineer nodded, "So we're going down." He grimaced at the thought of another flight.

Just as the four had agreed on a plan a changeling buzzed down onto the ledge. The mercenaries froze and stared at the oblivious changeling as it as it wandered into the cave.

Scout let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding, he flared his wings to take off but Sniper grabbed him. "Hey! What the hell!"

"It'll feel us if we fly." The griffin hissed, he nodded to other changelings moving to holes in the walls, "We gotta climb down."

The young pegasus looked horrified, "Climb? I ain't got no claws."

Sniper grumbled for a moment. He looked over his shoulder at Pyro, who grabbed Engineer and shook her head. The griffin sighed, "You're with me."

"What! No way man you smell 'a piss." Scout said, he pulled away from Sniper.

The sharpshooter just glared at the pegasus through his aviators, "Alright, ya little ankle biter, come 'ere."

Before Scout could react Sniper had seized his ankle in one claw, the griffin leapt from the ledge onto the soft walls, his claws dug into the walls and allowed him to perch. Scout dangled below him, the griffin digging his sharp claws into his ankle, drawing blood.

"Alright! Alright! I'm sorry! Just let me get on your back jeez." The pegasus squirmed and flapped his wings on instinct, Sniper shook him and hissed but allowed him to climb onto his back. The pegasus' grip around the griffin's neck was uncomfortably tight.

Pyro and Engineer watched in silence from the sidelines. Engineer tutted and shook his head, "They'd been getting along fine all day."

"Srnn jesss edgrrr." Pyro explained.

The dragon offered her arm to the unicorn, who reluctantly accepted. Pyro joined Sniper on the wall with Engineer under one arm, she used her wings to hold onto the wall for extra stability.

Pyro and Sniper crept down the wall as more changelings retreated to the caves.

Scout frowned, "Is it bedtime or somethin'."

Eventually the four reached the bottom, Pyro and Sniper detaching themselves from the wall and releasing their passengers. They studied the two armoured guards from a distance.

"They can't be the same ones can they?" Sniper asked.

"Might be," Engineer replied, "Don't know how long we've been here, hell they probably have changing of the guards here."

"So what, we just walk past 'em. They can't see us." Scout said. Sniper shifted uncomfortably, Scout grinned, "What? You think they can smell us or somethin'?"

"To be fair the Princess never said they couldn't." Engineer pointed out.

"Nrr hhppg." Pyro mumbled.

Sniper picked at his claws, "I don't know, just what the doc said about the turning towards us when we came in." He shook his head firmly, "Let's just go."

When the four approached the archway, Scout was the one who hesitated, Sniper glanced back at him. The pegasus ruffled his feathers, "Now your making me do it."

Once past the guards both Scout and Sniper turned back to them.

Both changeling guards were still facing forwards.

The pair glanced at each other, "Alright so we're both paranoid, but lookie here, nothin' to worry about." Scout said, Sniper still seemed nervous, but allowed a smirk.

"Ah, fellers." Engineer gulped, "Might wanna look at this."

Scout and Sniper both turned to face the room. More guards dotted the walls and two more stood either side of a black, mottled throne. Lounging atop that throne was a large changeling, very different from all the others the four had seen. The changeling appeared female, with a long mane and larger, more defined eyes. Her horn was tall and gnarled, but her body appeared more whole. Atop her head sat a small black crown, shaped almost like a bouquet of black and blue flowers.

"The Queen right?" Scout asked quietly, though he didn't know why he was suddenly quiet.

"Looks like it." Engineer murmured back.

"We should get outta here." Sniper said, he pushed his hat down and began to leave when Pyro grabbed his back paw.

"Trrr!" She said, pointing behind the throne. It was darker across the back wall but the mercenaries could just make out the outline of a cage.

"Who keeps prisoners next to royalty!" Scout almost shouted, "Who does that!"

Sniper shook his head, "Not prisoners; trophies."

"You think so slim?" Engineer asked, "'cause if you're right then Spy'll be there."

"So we just gotta get past that sheila."

"Eyup, looks li-"

"THEY CAN'T SEE US!" Scout shouted. Both Engineer and Sniper took battle stances, but no fight came. They both glared at Scout. "What, it's true, see?"

"I don't like this." Engineer muttered.

"Whatever, I'll just go." Scout said, he took off and swooped towards the cage. The other three hesitantly followed.

Scout landed when he was closer to the Queen, he glanced up at her. She hummed quietly to herself, Scout smirked, _she don't even know what's happening._ He waited for Engineer, Pyro and Sniper and he was just about to open his mouth to speak when he heard to Queen take a sharp breath in.

"Oh," She leant forwards and sniffed the air, "Oh, what's that I smell?" Her voice was warbled, like two people were trying to speak at once.

All four mercenaries froze in fear as the Queen rose from her throne, "It smells like dinner that thinks it can hide from _me_." She chuckled darkly, "Your spell won't help you save a traitor!"

The Queen's horn flashed a bright green, there was a sound like braking glass. The mercenaries found themselves surrounded by the same green light.

"Go!" Engineer shouted, but it was too late, the Queen had them in her magical grasp. The armoured guards either side sprung to life and circled the four.

"Only four of you? What a pity." The Queen said, gazing at each mercenary in turn. "Well, adleast my trap got some of you."

The mercenaries could only stare in silence, the Queen smirked, "What, no witty remarks? Now I really am surprised, especially since you'll all just a rag-tag bunch of misfits. That's why Celestia sent _you_ on this mission, she doesn't care if you get killed!"

"That ain't true!" Scout blurted out in a sudden bout of confidence.

"Oh, you do have a voice." The Queen chuckled cruelly, "How can you be so sure, what makes you think Celestia really cares about any of you! Half of you aren't even her subjects!"

The mercenaries were silent, the Queen grinned, "Don't worry _dears_, we'll look after you. Isn't that right, Spy?"

The only thing the group could do was stare helplessly as Spy stepped out from behind the throne. His suit was torn and had turquoise changeling blood smeared across it.

"Yes, my Queen."


End file.
